I am a servant by choice, a watcher by nature and an intellectual by design. Read at Risk of discomfort and offense by over-exposure of truth.

Month: November 2014

“Heeeey Cuuuzzzzz! What’s happening man?!”
Her voice is shrill and nasally. It’s incredible that it booms with such vibrant power. She is 4’9″, and draws all eyes in a room onto her petite frame. She stands as a giant. She is different and knows it.
As I, she was adopted and never quite fit perfectly into the family. As children we were drawn together at family functions to appease our not-so-mainstream ideals. While the other kids were watching sports, we were break dancing on cardboard to Michael Jackson. While they were playing Atari we were building legitimate tepees and forts. Cowboys and Indians always worked out well as she is of Mexican/Indian decent and well, Ya, I’m a cowboy. We shared a love for art, painting and making sculptures out of the mud from the olive grove. Painting Indian symbols on whitewashed walnut tree trunks with rotten walnut husks and black olives. Running through the fields with adventure and creativity brimming. It was one of the times I felt so alive and carefree. I was free to create, to be myself.
30 years later we have grown and lived our lives distanced. We come together for gatherings and maintain phone convo’s ever so often. She is still the same. People are shocked at times by her refusal to conform. I catch bewildered stares, stolen glances of awe. How could she not conform? How could she color her hair that color at that age? Tattoos on her chest? She plays the violin for a biker church…omg. They don’t relate, they can’t. It’s uncomfortable. But THAT is what I love about her! Good or bad, right or wrong, she is living regardless of what the herd is doing. Even after all this time I still admire my cuz for who she is and what she stands for in this life. I admire her strength to stand alone. She always shares her paintings and tattoos she done recently, it’s hard to look past her to the art she creates. She is the art, and I am lucky to see it.

It seems that my salad days are more than a toss of choice green cuts with a tantalizing additions of colorful toppings.
Yes these salad days are a painting of carefully grated Parmesan cheese, bright bell peppers, laying next to ripe, rich tomatoes. Mozzarella.
These days afford the sound of a sharp blade landing onto an applewood cutting board . The rasp of a pepper grinder and the rise of its work. The smell of fresh garlic blending with ripe red onions.
It’s the taste of deep red wine washing in these aromas and sensations as the masterpiece is created. It’s the breeze blowing through the house carrying the songs of birds and life. Swirling aromas, sights, sounds into one vast experience.
This is all cemented with sourdough, crisped and colored by an oven fire. Softened by sweet butter and speckled with minced garlic.
Salad days are the melody of art, inspiration, and life, all brought together with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and red wine.
The sounds, the smells, the textures. Such a simple pleasure that thrusts one so close to a sensory paradise.
These salad days.